


deadwater

by xxcaribbean



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, mermaid!billy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-07-04 09:05:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15838113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxcaribbean/pseuds/xxcaribbean
Summary: The tin can is filled; Billy is still mesmerized, and the only thing that knocks him clean is the sharp look Steve sends his way as if he’d known Billy was there all along.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is technically a scene out of a much longer fic that i've outlined. however, it may not actually ever get written, and well, if it doesn't, mermaid!billy's gotta be a thing that exists somehow.

Billy can’t shake the feeling that settles deep in his fins. He knows better than this--after all, it’s what gets their kind killed--but he follows it instead of listening because the curiosity presented before him is too much of a temptation to resist.

What makes this human so special? Billy’s never been captivated by much, but it’s taken little effort to figure out that this human is not like the rest.

He snorts, eying the water beneath Steve’s feet, each squelch of his shoes across the wooden planks grating on Billy’s nerves. Two buckets of fish dangle from his hands--back and forth across the dock as the fishermen empty freezers full of fish from another successful catch.

It’s boring, lackluster because Billy’s done this sort of thing his whole life--he’s got to eat somehow. Yet, the way this boy moves--a little lanky, a little clumsy--mesmerizes Billy. He shouldn’t be caught in frivolity; one human saving him doesn’t mean anything, especially after Billy had almost killed him.

Thank god for guilt, he thinks; his mother had always taught him his siren song was a gift. What a tragedy he’d almost let himself become.

Instead, Billy watches keenly. Steve does most of the hard labor, chalked up to being younger than most of the men on the boats. This means he also wades across the dock by his lonesome, and Billy curls his lips into a deadly smile.

Swimming too close than he knows what’s good for him, Billy lifts himself half way, tangles his fingers between the open spaces of splintered planks and shoves two remaining buckets across the dock. They skitter, Billy watching them go--one remains upright only by a miracle while the other topples over.

A colorful assortment of the sea’s finest flop across the dock in a wet spread of delicious food. Billy takes what he wants--only the biggest and the best--and dives back into the water with nothing more than a splash.

His grab is toothpick pickings, little grubs not meant for a full meal, but they’re satisfying. A pleased hum escapes as he munches, waiting for his human to return, and Billy knows that he will.

In no time, the creak of footsteps give Billy warning, makes him sink lower in the water as Steve comes back into view. He’s beautiful, very ethereal, and it makes him wonder how magnificent he’d be if he were Billy’s kind--with fins and a tail, full of gradient scales that’d shimmer while gliding through the water.

He figures, maybe, it’d be similar to the brown upon Steve’s head, a little longer than any other human Billy’s encountered, soft to the touch as both water and wind have tossed it around.

“What the f-”

Billy’s nose curls when he laughs, tail pressing forward as he meets the edge of the dock again. If Steve had noticed, he’d see the damp handprints across the wood, but Billy doesn’t blame him as Steve wipes his brow with the back of his arm. 

The wet of Billy’s lashes blur his vision, blinking away the water. It leaves the entirety of Steve in his wake, and Billy holds his breath as Steve cocks his head in confusion. “Literally, what the fuck?” he breathes.

Lowering himself, Steve reaches for one of the dozens of fish and eventually, the bucket, plopping the remnants of the day’s catch back where it belongs.

While his brows are crossed in confusion, Billy licks his lips, curious as Steve concentrates, as his face contorts into a variety of emotions Billy has never seen on him before.

It lasts for a long time, almost as long as it takes Steve to clean Billy’s mess, but that’s it. The tin can is filled; Billy is  _still_  mesmerized, and the only thing that knocks him clean is the sharp look Steve sends his way as if he’d known Billy was there all along.

Billy yelps, falling back into the water as Steve’s sharp laugh cuts in half by water-muffled ears.

“You’re lucky I took the best catch first,” Steve says as Billy breaks through the surface of the water. He hadn’t expected it, but the human’s moved closer to the edge of the dock--an eerie picture Billy hastily pushes from his mind, when cold, wet hands and the trill of his song had cultivated a very sedated Steve. “Your antics aren’t going unnoticed.”

Floating in the water is one of Billy’s favorite things to do, doesn’t quite understand how land life forsakes the ease the body is put through. Which is why he finds his way onto his back, staring up at the sky as Steve stares down at him--the curiosity Billy’s accustomed to transferred into the depths of beautiful, brown eyes.

Billy ignores Steve, kinda. He acknowledges the amusement, the slight intone of worry. The prospect of another human discovering Billy is a risk he’s taken--growing higher by the number each day he can’t say no--because there’s something here, and Billy doesn’t know what, and that feeling deep down in his fins won’t  _leave him alone_.

“Some of them think you’re an angel.” Steve’s fingers graze the water, but dip no further. Billy knows he’s nervous to touch him, had seen the hesitation the moment he’d rescued Billy from the fishing nets. There’s nothing wrong with his fins; Billy knows this, and he thinks he ought to tell Steve that he’s not  _much_  different than the slimy cretins he catches for a living.

Though all the same, Billy doesn’t push. He flops his tail in acknowledgement, and that’s all he gives by way of staring at Steve out of the corner of his eye.

“Wouldn’t they be surprised if they really knew,” Steve murmurs.

It sends a lump of bitterness down Billy’s throat, anger seething on the tip of his tongue. Quick as lightening--because Billy’s  _practiced_  as a means of survival--he finds himself in between Steve’s legs, fingers curling into the meat of Steve’s thighs.

He says nothing as Steve hands land atop his, gripping tight in fright and surprise from the sudden change. If Billy had better hearing, he thinks maybe he could pinpoint the second Steve’s heart picked up speed; he’d feel guilty for that, too, but as it stands, he frowns.

“I-” Steve starts, snaps his mouth shut when Billy’s jaw flexes under the harsh bite he’s known to give.

With a sharp shake of his head, Billy releases his grip on Steve, albeit slowly. If anyone should feel fear, it’s Billy--and he does, to an extent. The temptation he’s fallen under with Steve is useless fodder. It should mean nothing--it  _does_  mean nothing--but Billy only convinces himself of that in short bursts of rational.

Every other moment, he’s caught between the torrential downpour of emotions Steve offers him. He keeps Billy alight with satisfaction, with wonder, with that undulating curiosity he cannot explain.

The mere thought of anyone else’s hands on him but Steve’s makes Billy angry; it makes him aware that he’s anything but a threat because humans, at the end of the day, are the real monsters. Billy’s seen destruction, and he knows that Steve is on a boat out of basic survival, but that doesn’t mean his comrades wouldn’t turn at the opportunity for fresh meat.

It is, after all, why they fish in the depths of the ocean, far beyond what their eyes can see.

“Billy,” Steve says, coaxing him out of his panicked thoughts.

It works like a charm, tension fading, Billy attempting to slump back down into the water, back to safety, until Steve doesn’t let him.

The rocking of the water is usually the comfort his kind seek, the deep sway of ocean as it’s pulled by the wind, by the currents, and other sea life. Billy doesn’t thrive off of contact, not since he’s learned that that’s the human’s way, but Steve’s careful fingers--cold from the chill in the air, reproachful from caution--meet the curve of his cheek in the softest touch Billy knows he’s ever received.

He doesn’t mean to, but Billy curls into it. His features fall into comfort while the flutter of his heart is felt so deeply in his chest. Billy flicks his gaze over Steve’s, meets steely brown eyes that examine him so closely. “I wouldn’t do that,” he finally says, the conviction laced within his words. “I wouldn’t tell them about you.”

Relief had already flooded Billy long ago, so the tightening in his tummy is something different. Billy can’t explain it, and he doesn’t know that he wants to because something delicate has blossomed between them.

Steve releases a gentle smile, thumb brushing the corner of Billy’s lip, and he thinks if he’d reached a litter further, maybe Steve would like the taste--the taste of salt water and Billy and the humbled knowledge that what they’re doing isn’t necessarily okay--

But maybe it doesn’t have to be bad either. Maybe Billy could deal with a cruel fate if it meant he’d forever have Steve’s attention.


	2. Chapter 2

“You can be mad at me all you want, but splashing me like that isn’t going to get you food any faster.”

Billy glares as him like Steve’s plucked the scales right off his tail and sold them. They’re shiny and blue, glimmering in the water, masquerading its length and razor-sharp edges.

In defiance, Steve watches Billy tap the water with the palm of his hand–never very hard but in direct warning.

“I get it, alright?” Steve says exasperated, dragging the bucket closer to the edge of the dock. The food held in the metal pale are leftovers, things Steve knows can’t be sold for profit. Rather than letting the day’s catch go to waste, he’s found a resourceful opportunity.

Sometimes, though, it comes back to bite him in the ass.

Billy cocks his head, watches Steve dip into the bucket. The fish he pulls is tattered, gray and small, but he eyes it keenly. It’s the easiest catch he’ll have today, and he would’ve been satisfied already had Steve not been an hour late to their meeting point.

“The car got jammed,” Steve begins, weaving his story along the lines of his movements. He guts the fish carefully, and while Steve’s seen Billy eat them whole, spitting out bones and unnecessary innards, he’s also learned how oddly therapeutic it is to distract himself from the wear and tear sea life awards him. “It’s going to smell like fucking fish the entire way home. I’ll have to roll my windows down and let it air out.”

He finishes, places the discarded bits off to the side then reaches out and throws the fish into the air.

With one powerful kick, Billy leaps and snatches it, agitation dissipating the minute he sinks his fanged teeth into the meat. He understands why Steve does that sometimes, plays him like a pet in a bowl with tricks and treats–he’s only been mildly injured with scratches that left little trails of blood running down his body.

Steve had panicked the first time he’d seen them, thought maybe another net had caught him until Billy had showed off the biggest catch he’d found that week. Really, it had no chance, but it’d been big and fought Billy all the way to the grave.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Steve starts again, dipping back into the bucket once he’s noticed Billy chewing down the last bite, “but you really are the laziest mer I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Pink tongue darting across his teeth, then his lips, Billy blinks innocently like he doesn’t know exactly what Steve is saying. To some extent, he does. Maybe not everything; he’s still learning, but he understands tones, and he understands  _Steve_  most of all.

Mostly he’d like to say that Steve hasn’t met any of his kind before. He’s the  _only_  one.

So with that, he snorts, blinks, and moves his eyes back and forth between pretty brown irises’ that belong to his human and the meat in his hand he so desperately wants to eat.

“Unbelievable.”

The minute the fish is in his possession, Billy takes one look at Steve, grins wide and simply chomps down on his meal because he knows that while he’s being fed, Steve is eating out of the palm of his wet, webbed hands.


End file.
